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Friday, May 3, 2013

Sex in RPGs? Do You "Do It"?

I got involved in a stupid "back and forth" on G+ earlier today (nearly all "back and forths" on G+ are inherently stupid to engage in) and my mind strayed to the thought of "Sex & DnD".

I always had the player in high school and college that wanted to bed the barmade in every town the party stopped in and actually wanted to role play the "wooing" part of the encounter (I am very thankful we were able to "fade to black" thereafter).

I've also have only played female characters in pick up games with pregens and at cons. I kinda like sticking with the bits and pieces I already know.

In any case, I'm thankful my current group hasn't stated a desire to find more romance "in game". Then again, they are heavily involved within Rappan Athuk, and I expect any romance they might encounter would be regard with a great amount of suspicion ;)

How far do you allow your group (or yourself) to roleplay romantic encounters, or would you just rather avoid them altogether?

11 comments:

  1. Ignore them, mostly. If the players want to carouse around and get lucky with the local tavern wenches, I'll say they do.

    You never know, one of those wenches could be a rival thief, polymorphed demoness, hag, I think you can see where I'm going.

    I've once rolled a 1d10 in order to satisfy a player's curiosity of "how hot" the woman was he slept with. This was back in high school, mind you. In more recent games (being more mature at this point) the players largely leave the subject alone. They are adventurers looking for gold and glory! Not trying to live out a fantasy of a 16 year old.

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    1. "They are adventurers looking for gold and glory! Not trying to live out a fantasy of a 16 year old."

      Haven't you just contradicted yourself? >:P I mean, the real-life equivalents of D&D adventurers tend not to be particularly chaste...

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    2. I'm forty-two and I'd take a saucy wench over a little gold and glory any day of the week. "plus ça change, plus c'est la mêm..."

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  2. I have a "Lustful" Carousing table that most frequently results in PCs developing expensive gift giving habits to burlesque dancers. It's more fun when Demi-humans roll on it and I can inform them that they're from species is made up of tribal hermaphrodites who bare knuckle box each-other for the privileged of entering the spawning pool. (These were Leechmen - but try it with any demi-human, gnomes obviously - likely dwarves and elves).

    The thing is I suspect that the adventuring lifestyle doesn't really lead to stable relationships, and romance is a more one on one thing usually - while D&D is a group game. I'm glad to gloss over how the PC is a sexual tyrannosaur in the post or pre-game, but it bores the hell out of the rest of the party if a player wanted to spend all the game time on pitching woo.

    That said I also try to stay away from themes of sexual violence, because it's a game dammit! It is supposed to be fun, not creepy, depressing and upsetting! If a villain can't manage to be evil with the necromancy and the massacres - the party will just have to negotiate with them. Half-orcs are all the result of beer goggles and other poor romantic choices in my world and there are no half-dwarves (see above).

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    1. We tend to keep it off-screen, but we're a bunch of college dudes with a few irregular female players, and sometimes we go there. (revised for accuracy)

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  4. for every tryst a clan of angry fathers with lawsuits should appear with a lynchmob

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  5. We have a drunken, lecherous halfling in our campaign and he does tend to get with women in taverns, prostitutes, etc. with some regularity. For game purposes this may lead to alliances or animosities with NPCs and gathering of local gossip or other information, and our house rules include a sexual encounters table with XP gained for HP lost to STDs.

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  6. Have done it once or twice in the past with the right players, including female players, although no "hardsxx" but more sensiual/erotic descriptions and belnding off when it's time to "plug" the hole...

    "Doing" it to often becomes annying and i thus normally "skip ahead"

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  7. I'm fine with it as GM. Don't think I've ever played out a romance or casual liaison as a player.

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  8. Depends on the game. In D&D rarely to be honest. Though I was part of a WitchCraft game some years ago that dealt with a sex-slavery operation in Vancouver catering to supernaturals. That game went right to x-rated on day one.

    Romance, love and dating. Yeah did a lot of that in my Buffy games.

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